For person-to-person communications, a myriad of technologies are available to provide live, voice communications and real-time non-voice communications between at least two people. Voice communications may be conducted through parties having appropriate telephones (or similar devices) connected on a public switched telephone network (PSTN), a private switched telephone network (PBX), a cellular telephone network or through a combination of the networks. Non-voice communications can be conducted by persons accessing appropriate terminals (or similar devices) using data networks and data channels, such as email, short message service (SMS) and others. It is also common to have devices which incorporate both voice and non-voice capabilities (e.g. cell phones with SMS messaging capabilities).
As with most person-to-person communications there is a “calling” party and a “called” party. For a typical telephone call, the called party can obtain information about the calling party, through frequency shift key (FSK) signals embedded in between rings which precede establishment of a call, unless the signals are otherwise blocked. When sending email, the sender needs to know the address of the recipient of the email. Generally, the recipient will be provided the sender's address.
While existing person-to-person communication technologies individually have advantages, there is a need for additional technologies which can bridge between two or more different protocols. There is a need for a system and method establishing person-to-person communications which incorporates various advantages of existing systems through different channels.